A Look At The Most Common Restaurant Kitchen Employee Injuries
There are about one million restaurant businesses in the United States with more than 14 million restaurant employees inside those kitchens making sure every customer gets the food they order fresh and hot. If you work in a restaurant, whether it is a typical fast-food franchise location or a five-star eatery, you can consider yourself part of one of the largest business models in the world. However, you can also consider yourself part of a workplace setting where a lot of accidents can happen.
Commercial kitchens can have all kinds of hazards, and when tasks are rushed in these workplaces, injuries and workers compensation claims are common. Here are a few of the most common workplace injuries that can happen to you as an employee in a restaurant kitchen.
Cuts
Chopping onions and lettuce in a burger joint, slicing roast beef in a deli kitchen on a meat slicer, and using an electric knife to saw through a whole fresh chicken at a high-end restuarant—all of these are common and ongoing scenarios in a commercial kitchen. Unfortunately, working with sharp objects all day or several times every day is going to put you more at risk for getting a major cut somewhere on your body, but most likely your hands and fingers.
Burns
No matter what commercial kitchen you work in, there is bound to be at least one heat-producing appliance in the vicinity. You may use an oven all day to toast sub buns, boil water for freshly-made pasta, drop fries and onion rings in a fryer, or flip burgers over a grill. No matter how careful you may be in your role as a restaurant food-prep worker, there is always a chance that you could get burned, and in some cases, the burns can be really severe.
Slips
Water spilled from the dishwasher or sink. Someone spilled some marinara on the floor or dropped a few grapes. Grease splattered from the grill to the floor. There are so many ways a restaurant kitchen floor can get slippery, which means there are a lot of potential ways you could slip and fall while at work. Slips and falls can leave with a full list of injuries, especially in a kitchen where sharp objects can be around and hot surfaces and food.
The bottom line is that working in a restaurant kitchen can be a good job, but it can also bring along with it certain workplace dangers. If you've had to file a workers compensation claim because you were injured on the job, reach out to a workers compensation attorney for advice.